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Wednesday, 31 October 2012

A few years ago Hallowe'en was my busiest gigging time of the year, when I played with a Horrorbilly Showband called The Texas Chainsaw Orchestra.

An epic 13 piece outfit, Mexican Day of the Dead Brass, corpse bride singers, an undead accordion player, a voodoo drummer, an indestructible double bassist, keyboardist who could summon the end of the world, a guitarist with skills so sick you'd think he was at the crossroads with Robert Johnson and the guy in charge, our lead singer with a mic stand forged by the breath of the Morning Star himself.

As you can imagine, it's quite a unit to mobilise when it comes to gigging, but the show was always amazing. Thanks to our honorary 14th member, Lorenzo, we really looked the part with some truly gruesome make-up. Sometimes I do actually miss getting home from a gig at 4am and then having to stay up another hour getting all the black makeup off.

So when it's Hallowe'en, I remember these guys and the fun times we had. Here we are in action.

Sunday, 14 October 2012

A week ago, after a difficult gig with a broken hand and precious little sleep following a minor plumbing incident, I found myself sat at this computer doing the old F5 mambo.

That's right - Glasto ticket buying time.

Every year I get so stressed with it, moan about what a headache it is trying to get through, having a zillion screens open, running an spare laptop on a different browser (just in case) and hoping and praying I get my tickets now and don't have to go through all of this again in April.

I was lucky. I got my two tickets with 6 minutes to spare, after over an hour 'n' half of exhausted refreshing and crashing input screens. Seetickets are just not up to the job, I really don't know why Glasto persist with them.

My heart goes out to all who desperately wanted tickets, and didn't manage to get them. I'll cross my fingers for you for April.